


Forests of the Night

by Argyle



Series: House of Dracula (Fearful Symmetry AU) [1]
Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Biting, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic, Edwardian Period, Fake Science, Fix-It of Sorts, Forced Relationship, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M, Manipulation, Mind Games, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rimming, Smoking, Telepathic Bond, Transformation, Vampire Sex, grievous bodily harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:20:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: Jonathan Harker has been a vampire - and Dracula's finest bride - for nearly a decade. But life’s not all blood and roses at Carfax Abbey, and their fragile domestic balance is threatened by a timely encounter with a certain paranormal scholar and enthusiast of everything dark and evil. (AU branching off from Episode 1.)
Relationships: Dracula/Jonathan Harker
Series: House of Dracula (Fearful Symmetry AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682920
Comments: 64
Kudos: 419





	1. Chapter 1

_"Simply remain by my side... and I will absorb you."  
(Dracula: The Rules of the Beast)_

England, 1907

Jonathan Harker is dreaming.

He dreams that it's springtime, in Exeter, and he is flushed and panting from running up the hill—after her. _Mina_. And she has already begun setting out their picnic things: a loaf of brown bread and a block of cheese, strawberries from her mother's garden, cold chicken, crumb biscuits, and a bottle of Madeira. She's already settled down upon the blanket with her legs folded neatly beneath her, and she's wearing the dress he loves, the yellow one with blue satin ribbons—

The old oak tree is bright with tender green leaves, though scarcely filled out enough to block the midday sun—

Mina holds a hand up to shield her eyes, casting her face in shadow. _"Hurry up, Johnny! I'm famished!"_

Jonathan Harker is dreaming that he is a man.

But of course he is no such thing. Not anymore. Not for nigh on a decade now.

The wine is cool and sweet; the berries are supple. And Mina is laughing. _"Johnny—"_

"Johnny." His name lands as a puff of cold breath upon his neck, raising the fine hairs. "Naughty Johnny. What am I going to do with you?"

Jonathan shivers. He's tucked up on the settee and Dracula is looming over him, his mouth curled in a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. This is the second time this week that Jonathan has failed to return to their crypt before daybreak, and while sleep in his potting shed-turned-laboratory comes easily enough to him, it's not of the truly restorative type to be had in his earth-lined box.

"I lost track of time," Jonathan admits, a bit defensively. He pushes himself up and looks across the room to where an array of tubes, vials, and scientific instruments of varied origin and purpose are positioned across his workbench. His microscope – still set with a slide containing several droplets of his own blood – stands in the center.

"I have tolerated this… _hobby_ , Johnny. Even encouraged it. But do not think I will allow it to interfere with your health." Dracula cards a hand through Jonathan's hair. "Starting to go grey again, my dear. We can't have that," he says. And then: "You will hunt with me tonight."

At last, Jonathan turns to his lord. He stares into the black pools of his eyes. And inexorably, irrevocably, something shifts within him. Oh, how he _craves_ his lord's attention. He swings up to press his face against Dracula's, his mouth open to nip at Dracula's lips; his tongue. Dracula at once deepens the kiss and lifts Jonathan halfway from the settee, cradling him closely. "There's my Johnny," he whispers. "Come. I've drawn you a bath. I need you to be presentable if we're to attend the opera."

"Must we?" This comes out as almost a whine. Pathetic, really. But Jonathan scarcely notices. Dracula picks him up and carries him from the laboratory, through the garden where a fine layer of snow coats the dormant rosebushes, and into the very same residence that brought Jonathan to Transylvania so many years ago: Carfax Abbey. Their home.

Upstairs, Dracula deftly undresses him before leading him to the hulking, claw-footed tub. Jonathan flinches as he slides into the too-warm water, but Dracula holds him still, already working Jonathan's hair into a lather with scented soap.

The touch of his lord's strong hands on his scalp, his shoulders and back, is enough to coax a low moan from his chest. Dracula chuckles. Then he drops his hand lower, down beneath the water to palm Jonathan's aching cock. Jonathan's knuckles go white with his grip on the tub, and _yes_ —Dracula strokes him with absolute confidence and familiarity, drawing him to the brink—

Then he bites down on Jonathan's throat, nuzzling that tender juncture of flesh, lapping up the blood just as the wound begins to heal. Jonathan groans, his entire body a conduit within this single rarefied moment.

The pain is delicious—aberrant yet true.

And he's finished, crying out and spilling into his lord's hand.

"Good boy," Dracula purrs. He gives Jonathan's throat one last nip before leaning in for a kiss. Jonathan dazedly tastes his own blood on Dracula's lips. "My beautiful Johnny."

Then Dracula straightens, drying his hands on a flannel before tossing it into the water. "Finish up and meet me downstairs in twenty minutes. I've taken the liberty of laying out your clothes."

For a long moment, Jonathan remains perfectly still. Alone. He stares at his open hands. His long, gentle fingers which taper into claws.

 _How_ , he thinks. _How in God's name did this happen to me? How could I_ let _him win—_

A feeling of abject horror hits him, pummels him like flotsam in a wave, before receding once more. He takes a deep, purposeful breath, and clenches his hands into fists. Then he takes the flannel and rubs himself clean.

He doesn't like to keep his lord waiting.

*

If Jonathan is honest with himself – which despite his fraught circumstances, is a virtue he strives to maintain – Dracula's insistence on dressing his bride in the latest Saville Row fashions is the least of his grievances. In life, Jonathan never preoccupied himself with clothing, his lack of interest bolstered by a lack of funds. But now, with his lord's seemingly limitless coffers behind him, he allows himself the singular pleasure of adornment.

This time, it's a white wingtip-collared shirt; pinstripe trousers and black oxfords; a bespoke tailcoat of deepest black; a top hat and suede gloves; and the teardrop-shaped sapphire brooch which Dracula gave him on the first anniversary of their union. It's an ostentatious thing, and also a perfect companion to Dracula's own enormous ruby... and with practiced ease, Jonathan pins it into the nest of ivory silk knotted at his throat.

It's been nearly a fortnight since he last fed.

He doesn't need a mirror to know that a smattering of grey hairs isn't the only sign that his vampiric body has begun to deteriorate. By now, his eyes will have undoubtedly begun to recede into their sockets, the laugh lines at his temples which he carved in life becoming ever more pronounced in undeath. His lips will have thinned, and his skin grown sallower, the veins beneath numerous and vividly blue.

Not for the first time, he feels some kinship with the knights of old, layering their armor in preparation for battle. It takes everything he has to protect the world from his hunger. His guts pulse with the dull ache of it. His overwrought senses quake.

And then: _Johnny._ His lord's voice comes to him unbidden, sharp—an assault within his own mind. But so too a habitual – even welcome – presence. _Come to me, Johnny._

Jonathan shrugs on his greatcoat, makes his way downstairs, and locks the massive door behind him.

Dracula is already seated behind the wheel of his motorcar – tonight, it's the custom burgundy Albion, one of three cars he had acquired in the time since they came ashore at Whitby – his face obscured by goggles and a scarf.

For a moment, Jonathan recalls a scene from nearly a decade before: that first frightful night in Transylvania. It was no mere coach driver who met him at the crossroads and transported him to Castle Dracula—but the Count himself, his face obscured then too. It shocks him now to think he could have been so fucking _naïve_. The villagers' warnings still echo in his ears.

Why hadn't he escaped when he had the chance?

But then again, no. Dracula had been with him from the very beginning. Watching him. And waiting. Jonathan had no chance at all.

Another, more familiar thought comes to him: perhaps something in him had also wanted it that way. Wanted it then as he wants it now.

Dracula squeezes Jonathan's thigh with an intimacy he's known from no one else, and they're off, bumping down the long, curving driveway, and into the night.

*

Later, much later, Jonathan raises his handkerchief to wipe the blood from his mouth. He feels newly made, full to brimming, drunken—and buzzing with strength. The miscreant he'd felled had been a wretched soul, aiming for a fight and bound for death.

After taking the necessary precautions to prevent the fellow from resurrecting, he'd left him in alleyway, unmourned.

He lights a thin cigarette and waits beneath a gas lamp for Dracula to return to him. Midway through the second act of _Così fan tutte_ , his lord had absconded with an elderly woman with purported ties to the Prussian royal family. No doubt Dracula would delight in recounting whether the claim was true.

A thin puff of smoke escapes from Jonathan's lips. For a moment, all is still. And then the breeze lifts a dirty playbill off the ground, carries it forward, and neatly deposits it at his feet. He taps the ash from his cigarette and begins to read:

_Demons! Witches! Vampires!_

_Experience the Unknown_

_Renowned Scholar A. M. Van Helsing Shatters the Mortal Veil  
to Reveal the Chilling Scientific Evidence Behind  
Phenomena of the Occult and Unexplained!_

_Appearing After a Triumphant Tour of the Continent, and Having  
Received the Patronage of Several Crowned Heads of Europe,  
Van Helsing Will Electrify London!_

Jonathan carefully folds and pockets the paper. He lets out a nervous little laugh. And he smiles.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you certain you won't consider joining me?" Jonathan asks. He and Dracula are standing beneath a single umbrella outside the Old Vic theatre, not far from bustling Waterloo station. Van Helsing's presentation won't begin for another hour, and Jonathan cannot help but again beseech his lord to attend.

For the professor is not unknown to Jonathan—in his exhaustive research into the nature of vampirism, it has been difficult to find sources which attempt to parse truth from the legends. Indeed, Van Helsing's publications delve far beyond that: the scholar wields the certainty of modern science like a blade which neatly cleaves open the mysteries of the occult.

But despite his enthusiasm for all things scientific, Dracula has shown little interest in such things. He shrugs Jonathan off or grows sullen, cagy – and at times angry – when asked about his history, or how he came to be. He's only relished in repeatedly claiming that his own lord and master had been the Devil himself, which makes Jonathan suspect that Dracula may know even less than him about their kind's true lineage than he does.

Certainly, neither of them quite understands why Jonathan of all people was the one bride who retained his own mind after Dracula turned him. And to Jonathan's relief, Dracula hasn't yet attempted to recreate the experiment.

Now Dracula lets out a low, chiding chuckle. "Why settle for a penny lecture," he says, "when one might enjoy an entire course of study? There are several intellectual hives to be found within a short walk from here, my dear. I refuse to miss such an opportunity to sample the latest _discourse_."

"Fine," Jonathan says, softly. "I'll see you in a few hours."

Despite himself, he lets his lord draw him in for a discreet kiss, and nods when he whispers, "Be good, Johnny."

*

Jonathan settles into an empty seat and studies the stage: a single podium stands off-center, with the rest of the space dominated by a long, lumpy, blanket-covered table.

He checks his watch. It's nearly half-nine.

And precisely on schedule, the curtain parts. A serious-looking gentleman steps out from the wings, glancing briefly at the audience before retrieving a crowded utility trolley – Jonathan identifies several scientific apparatuses he has in his own laboratory – and pushing it onto the stage. He's in his mid-sixties or older, and he fits Jonathan's mental picture of Van Helsing to the utmost, from the cropped white hair and careworn yet calculating face, to the round-rimmed spectacles, gold watch chain, and staid black suit.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he projects. "Thank you for joining us for what is sure to be an evening of formidable elucidation." And then, after a pause: "It's with utmost pleasure that I now introduce our esteemed guest, celebrated occult scholar and noted polymath, Agatha Van Helsing."

A murmur trickles through the crowd, and so too Jonathan stifles his surprise as the gentleman retreats behind the curtain and Van Helsing strides out. _Agatha_ Van Helsing. She gazes out at the audience, dignified and inquisitive. "Thank you, Professor Sloan," she says, her English elegantly accented. She smiles and slips a grey lab smock over her evening gown, and a pair of heavy rubber gloves over her hands and up to her elbows. "You forgot to mention 'former nun.'"

Here she rips the blanket back from the table to reveal a body, its limbs totally still—and yet purposefully strapped down with leather belts. It's not clearly male or female, young or old. Its features are sunken. Its head is completely bald. Its skin is grey and shriveled, here and there mottled and rotten like a piece of overripe fruit.

Cries, groans, and sporadic profanity rise up from the audience. They're shocked and sickened. But also enthralled: not a single soul moves to leave the theatre.

With a sense of rising dread, Jonathan recognizes this thing laid out before them as a revenant, one of the mindless undead not unlike those he encountered in the depths of Castle Dracula. But this one seems older; more enfeebled than even those cursed souls.

"Ah," says Van Helsing. "I was hoping my friend here would get your attention. You see… **There is a contagion. A corruption passing through this world from one sufferer to the next. For those unfortunates who fall victim to it, life becomes incurable. They lose the divine ability to die.** "

Here she takes a knife from the trolley and slashes the creature's palm. Immediately, it begins to strain against its bonds—but ineffectively. Its eyes open and a low gurgle ekes from its dry, hungry mouth: "Kill…me…"

"In due time," Van Helsing says. "Now. How many of you are familiar with the story of Lazarus of Bethany?"

*

"...puppetry! But no mere marionette. It must have been controlled from beneath..."

"...actor in stage makeup, surely..."

"...no, what's the word—automaton! Like Manzetti's flute player! I still recall witnessing that magnificent contrivance at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park when I was a boy..."

Jonathan reels with revulsion. It's all he can do to make his way out of the auditorium and into the lobby to collect his belongings. In his ten years as a vampire, he has not once been sick; he didn't think it possible. But after an hour spent witnessing Van Helsing make a show of that pitiful creature, and hearing her speak so clinically of its state, he is gagging.

Yet Van Helsing's words ring in his ears: _there is a contagion_.

And of course that's what it is, isn't it? The bond he shares with Dracula is no ordinary arrangement, no simple alignment—but rather a communicable disease.

He huddles into his greatcoat and makes his way outside. The rain is coming down harder now, but he pays it no mind. There's a café across the street where he dazedly orders a cup of Darjeeling. The porcelain is piping hot; he uses it to warm his hands as he breathes in the strong, reedy scent of the tea.

And then: "Hello. May I join you?"

Jonathan looks up to find Agatha Van Helsing standing before him. She's wearing an elaborately brocaded cape over her dress, and presently sets the hood down over her shoulders. She smiles and bows her head slightly. "I do not wish to disturb you, sir, but I would very much welcome a moment of your time."

"Yes," Jonathan says, but it comes out as a croak. He clears his throat. "Yes, by all means—although I've no idea what interest you could have in speaking to me."

"Do you not?" Van Helsing replies. A waiter brings her a glass of port, and she sips it thoughtfully. "Perhaps I sensed in you a kindred spirit, Mr.—ah—"

"Harker. Jonathan Harker," Jonathan says, the truth spilling from his mouth before he has time to conjure up an alias. He flinches. His lord would be none too pleased to behold such carelessness.

"Mr. Harker," Van Helsing repeats. Then: "Out of the dozens of people in attendance tonight, you were the only one really paying attention. The only one who showed a glimmer of empathy for my subject."

"Er...some sort of puppet, was it?" Jonathan offers, half-heartedly.

His companion lets out an amused snort. "You don't actually believe that."

Jonathan pauses for a long moment before saying, "No."

"And so we are left with one alternative: that what I presented tonight is the truth. Which makes me very curious, Mr. Harker. I would like to know how _you_ know about such things. And please, for both of our sakes, do not stoop so low as to attribute it to a fondness for penny dreadful novels."

Jonathan smiles despite himself. Of course, this is exactly what he was going to do. "Well..." he falters. "I've done some traveling in the East. Greece, Hungary... Romania. The local mythologies are quite compelling."

"Quite."

And she is waiting for him to continue, all patience. But she's also studying him, her gaze as clever as an anatomist's blade. She takes another sip of her wine.

Jonathan opens his mouth—and then feels a familiar tingle at the back of his skull. His lord is approaching... he's but two blocks away now. Perhaps less. "I'm sorry, Professor Van Helsing—"

"Call me Agatha. I must admit that almost all of my scientific education has been, shall we say, _informal_. How would you English put it? Ah. Field training."

"Yes. Agatha." Jonathan swallows. "You must forgive me—I'm meeting someone, you see."

"Of course." Here she pulls a card from her bag and holds it out to him. "I've let a flat in Kensington. Perhaps you would do me the honor of a visit. I would very much like to speak of our shared interest in greater depth. Shall we say Sunday afternoon?"

"No," Jonathan grits out. Dracula is drawing closer now, and Jonathan dreads what would happen if he met Van Helsing. Or worse: truly took an interest in her. He forces himself to exhale. "I'm sorry. My afternoons are booked solid."

"The evening, then."

"All right." Jonathan leaves enough coins on the table to cover both of their drinks—his own, of course, having gone quite untouched—and steps outside just in time to see Dracula round the corner.

His lord grins wickedly, ever pleased to see him. "I hope you enjoyed yourself tonight, Johnny, because I certainly have. Look." He holds up a corked wine bottle. "I even brought you a souvenir."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agatha's lines in bold face were borrowed directly from the show. The gentleman who introduces her was based on Edward Van Sloan, the actor who portrayed Abraham Van Helsing in the 1931 'Dracula' film :)


	3. Chapter 3

_Dracula will rise._ Dracula is here. _Dracula is the night that never ends._ Dracula hungers. _Dracula is my master._ Dracula is generous. _Dracula will be obeyed._

Dracula is waiting.

Jonathan and his lord are stretched out side-by-side on their marital bed, a familiar pose for them to return to in the cold, quiet hours before dawn. Jonathan welcomes this closeness. Savors the intimacy of the shared space before they're forced to retreat to the crypt and the solitary confines of their boxes—for though Dracula has repeatedly experimented in combining Romanian and English earth, he has yet to find a formulation to his liking.

No matter what the previous hours have held, he frequently demands that they end their nights here.

And he is waiting.

"Have I lost you, Johnny?"

Jonathan shakes himself. "Hmm?" he murmurs, belatedly realizing his mind had been wandering again. He's still shaken from Van Helsing's presentation—and meeting the uncanny scholar herself. He tries to recover his focus on the page before him, and then begins to read: "'Let me tell you, professor, you won't regret the time you spend aboard my vessel. You're going to voyage through a land of wonders. Stunned amazement will probably be your habitual state of mind. It will be a long while before you tire of the sights constantly before your eyes.

"'I'm going to make another underwater tour of the world—perhaps my last, who knows?—and I'll review everything I've studied in the depths of these seas that I've crossed so often, and you can be my fellow student. Starting this very day, you'll enter a new element, you'll see what no human being has ever seen before—since my men and I no longer count—and thanks to me, you're going to learn the ultimate secrets of our planet...'"

Jonathan hazards a glance to his side. His lord's eyes are closed, and he's smiling softly. The flickering light from the fireplace lends his still features the illusion of animation, golden-hued and full. Not for the first time, Jonathan is struck by how exquisite a creature Dracula is—how in repose, his violence is hushed.

In their time together, Dracula has here and there let slip just how lonely his existence had been. Before. He'd spent centuries dining with – and on – courtesans and countesses, kings; shepherds and lost souls seeking refuge at Castle Dracula. Those _without flavor_. And he'd spent just as long trying to create for himself a bride who would be a true companion to him.

"You can't fathom what it means to me, my beautiful Johnny," he'd confided on that first fateful night after Jonathan had fallen forward onto the bastion's stone floor, rather than backward over the wall, "to _finally_ have someone with whom I can _talk_."

And someone to whom he could listen.

"'I can't deny it,'" Jonathan continues to read, "'the commander's words had a tremendous effect on me. He had caught me on my weak side, and I momentarily forgot that not even this sublime experience was worth the loss of my freedom.'"

Unbidden, the image of Van Helsing's gruesome subject rises in Jonathan's mind's eye. The scholar had speculated that peace might never be had for souls who'd heretofore been denied the blessing of death. That the confinement of _life_ was their curse.

The undead—the brides—Jonathan. Dracula himself. It went beyond a loss of freedom. Jonathan knew more keenly than Van Helsing ever would that they were no less than eternally damned, the lot of them.

Jonathan shivers and sets the book down. "Forgive me. I'm feeling rather—"

"I know, Johnny. I know. That's enough for tonight." Dracula presses a kiss to Jonathan's brow. Then he uncorks the bottle he'd set on the side table and pours out two glasses. "The exploits of Captain Nemo aboard his magnificent _Nautilus_ can wait. Here. Take this."

And oh, Jonathan's dread is snuffed out like a candle flame. Even the faintest scent of blood is intoxicating, and it's difficult for him to restrain himself when every fibre of his being demands this and so much more. He dashes his tongue across his dry lips. Then he takes a sip.

Dracula watches him closely. "Tell me," he says, "what you see."

At first...at first there is only warmth. Rich, ruddy warmth. For even now, Jonathan's ability to decipher his victims' blood is rudimentary at best—he can pick out the most recent memories and sensations, synaptic echoes, scorch marks on bare earth. Dracula has assured him that more will come to him in time. Perhaps he'll even be able to collect languages and accents in whole cloth, as Dracula does.

_Blood is lives._

And beneath the warmth, Jonathan knows that this one ended in terror. Red on red: Dracula separated the young man from his companions, lured him, throttled him. Fell upon him and fed.

"His name was Henry. He was down from Oxford for his sister's wedding. He'd already been a bit drunk when he arrived at the pub," Jonathan says, at last. "He held you so tightly... Like a drowning man."

"Yes. He feared death," Dracula drawls. "For a supposed intellectual, his last thoughts were _quite_ dull." He takes a sip from his glass, frowning thoughtfully. "Still, there's something to it. He had the most remarkable memories of her—her golden beams dappling through his bedroom window... her warmth over his bare skin on a summer's day. Her long, evening embrace settling over the countryside, casting everything in scarlet. D'you know, Johnny, he grew up near Exeter? Just like you."

Jonathan struggles to parse sense from his lord's words—his own boyhood seems a perpetually far-off thing, like the tracing of a tracing. And then again, it's a struggle to consider anything but draining the rest of his glass, tilting his head back to lap up the dregs.

Then Dracula sets the glasses aside and raises a hand to cup Jonathan's cheek. "Perhaps we'll pay a visit sometime. You can introduce me to your family. Would you like that?"

Jonathan shivers and leans into the touch, blood-drunk and needy. "No," he whispers. "I'll do everything I can to _stop_ you."

"Oh, my very dearest," Dracula laughs. He lifts Jonathan's nightshirt up and off before pulling him onto neatly his lap. "Still such lovely optimism!"

Jonathan sighs; Dracula is very nearly warm—and already quite aroused, his cock straining against his black velvet dressing gown. Grabbing the bed frame, Jonathan grinds firmly down.

Dracula gasps despite himself, and then retaliates with a kiss, all teeth and tongue. Jonathan tastes his own blood on his lips before Dracula licks them clean. "Look at you," he says, wonderingly. "My marvelous boy."

Before long, Dracula has slicked his fingers with oil and begun to work at Jonathan's hole, one long digit at first – coaxing, angling – then another, until Jonathan bucks against him and mewls with want. "Please."

"Please what, Johnny? You'll have to be more specific."

" _Take me_."

And Dracula does. He grips Jonathan's hips and thrusts up, entering him with such force that Jonathan is certain that – this time, this time – he will surely be torn apart. For a fleeting moment, he sucks in a breath and rests his brow on Dracula's shoulder, smelling him, tasting him—cool, metallic, clean; not like a man at all.

Nothing if not his lord.

And sex is like a battle they wage between them. Jonathan works his tongue over Dracula's lips, pushing them apart, grazing his sharp teeth, and when Dracula opens his mouth for him, Jonathan shivers with the simple acquiescence of it. Dracula's hand is gripped at Jonathan's nape; he yanks at the fine hairs there, then shifts so that his long fingers stretch round the back of Jonathan's head. Jonathan moans, rocking in time with the motion of his lord's hips. Impaling himself more deeply. It's so hard to keep himself together—

 _Johnny._ Dracula's voice thrums from within Jonathan's skull. _Johnny, let me in._

Jonathan relents. Of course he does. He lets his undead senses expand and tumble against Dracula's, twine with them, until every pleasure, each ache and pressure, belongs to neither of them but truly both.

He is at once within and without himself.

Fucking and being fucked.

It's rare for Dracula to offer this to him. And by God, it's _good_. He whimpers, his rhythm becoming more erratic. Dracula's hands tighten on his hips. Neither of them ever lasts long after they've entwined, and this time is no exception. Jonathan comes, and Dracula does too, growling against Jonathan's chest.

For a long moment, they stay like that, Dracula's cock softening inside him—Jonathan breathes in and out to slowly, deliberately, steady himself. Then he slides off Dracula's lap. He feels tranquil. Drained.

Dracula rakes his gaze down him. "So beautiful, Johnny. And to think you're all mine..."

Then Jonathan shudders, something of himself suddenly returning to him. A wave of shame breaks through his bliss. And then: Hellfire. No simple horror, but Hell itself, surely.

*

Later, after Dracula has closed the coffin lid over Jonathan's head – _"Rest well, my dear."_ – before sleep takes him into its merciful embrace, he makes a pledge to himself.

And his pledge is this: he will go to Agatha Van Helsing.

He will tell her everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan is reading from Jules Verne's _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: A World Tour Underwater_.


	4. Chapter 4

_I will go to Agatha Van Helsing and tell her everything._

Or so Jonathan assures himself in the quiet places of his mind, repeating it over like some cursed invocation.

But such are the best laid schemes of mice and men, and the passage of time is a funny thing for an immortal: a full month or more goes by before he works up the nerve to post a letter—

_4 Mar 1907_

_Professor Van Helsing,_

_Please accept my apologies. I have been remiss in contacting you—but be assured that this does not betray a deficit in interest. Quite the opposite. I believe there is much I could say which you would find informative._

_If you still consent to further dialogue, and keeping in mind the sensitive nature of our shared interest, I would be humbled to request that you leave some sign upon your door next Sunday evening._

_Until that time,_

_I remain sincerely yours,_

_J. Harker_

—and in the meantime, winter melts into an early spring. About the manor grounds, animals begin to crawl out from their holes. The surrounding woods are newly alight with fresh, green growth, crocuses that determinedly push through the last of the frost, tender leaf buds, sprouts of ferns and ivy, all of it sweetly scented and new.

Jonathan spends a large part of his waking hours performing inexpert but meticulous – and thus far ineffectual, to his dismay – experiments upon his own blood and person, the most recent of which left him without the use of his right hand for three days.

Until he'd healed. As he always does.

And Dracula—Well. Dracula takes a new interest in politics. Four members of Parliament turn up dead within a fortnight, their bodies left in increasingly gruesome condition, which is enough to ignite a fevered wave of public speculation on the possible return of Jack the Ripper.

This delights Dracula. "The English never fail to amaze! Perhaps I'll stoke their imaginations by using a scalpel next time..." He clips out the newspaper articles with increasingly desperate headlines – _Horror in the West End! Has the Ripper Returned?_ \- _Nightmare at Westminster: House of Lords in Chaos!_ \- _Questions Mount as Parliamentarian Killings Continue, Baffling Scotland Yard_ – and saves them in a neat folio on his desk.

When four victims becomes five, Jonathan barges into his lord's study brandishing the latest edition of _The Times_ , which has three entire articles devoted to the so-called "peerage murder-spree."

"You're being reckless! The authorities will be at our doorstep before long."

Dracula doesn't immediately look up from the letter he's writing. He sighs, irritated. "What makes you think I wouldn't welcome the interruption? I've been in England for a decade, and I've yet to partake in a _single_ constabulary officer."

"No. England isn't like Romania. There are—"

"What? Customs? _Rules_?" He sets his teeth in a mirthless grin. "Would you like to tell that to the hundreds _you've_ drained since you died, my dearest? There must be a few still walking around who would love to hear what you have to say."

"Damn you."

"What was that?" Dracula slides his chair backwards from the desk and slowly gets to his feet. "I didn't hear you."

"You risk exposure."

"Ah." By now, Dracula has drawn close. He reaches out with two long fingers and lifts Jonathan's chin, demanding his eye. "And would you not welcome that? Or perhaps you no longer wish to see me brought to justice."

"No, I—" Jonathan falters. It would be so easy to simply fall into his lord's embrace—it would be frightening and painful and _known_. And then: "Not like this."

Dracula leans forward so that their faces are almost touching. "Yes. I thought as much. Admit it, Johnny. You've grown accustomed to this life." His breath is cool on Jonathan's cheek. "You've accepted everything I've ever offered—you've taken all my gifts and demanded _more_."

"You've made a monster of me."

"And? At least that is something! What did you have to look forward to before? A lackluster career, a dull wife and a couple of brats running under heel, a tedious mortal life for what—another thirty years? Forty? Before you succumbed to drink or madness... or worse. Traveling to Transylvania was the single most transformative experience of your life, even before I took you. Admit it: I _saved_ you."

And this is an old argument between them—one which Jonathan cannot let Dracula dictate. He cannot. "You took everything," he grits out and turns heel before his lord can goad him into fisticuffs or sex—or, in all likelihood, both.

Dracula still laughs heartily and calls after him, "Oh, Johnny. I've only just begun."

*

It takes Jonathan a half hour's walk and three rail transfers before he finds himself standing before Agatha Van Helsing's address in Kensington. The home is but one within a row of a dozen, each nested side-by-side, as straight and white as teeth in a skull. The narrow pavement leads into a silent, winter-brown garden, and up to the front door.

Strung round the knob, Jonathan quickly picks out, is a braid of fresh garlic.

 _So,_ he thinks, _Agatha has left a sign._

And of course, despite what the legends said, garlic has no effect on him other than to slightly agitate his keen sense of smell. He knocks twice, and there's a lengthy pause before the door swings open.

"Good evening, Mr. Harker," says Agatha Van Helsing. "I must say, I am rather surprised to see you. Considering the belatedness of your letter, I thought you were perhaps having a laugh at my expense."

"No," Jonathan replies simply and truthfully, "I was simply... indisposed."

Agatha narrows her gaze, taking him in from head to foot. "Ah. I suppose you are regularly caught under the weather? For even now you appear to have forgotten your umbrella."

Jonathan absently realizes that it had at some point begun to drizzle. His cloak is wet, and he can feel that the wisps of hair peeking out from beneath his hat have plastered themselves to his temples. He must look ridiculous. He curses himself, wondering if this of all things will stop Agatha from inviting him inside.

But then again, no. She moves back from the threshold and motions for him to enter. "Come along then. Before I change my mind," she says. And then, with a rueful smile: "And by the way, I will caution you not to try anything stupid, Mr. Harker. I am trained in single-hand combat. And I am also _fully_ armed."

*

The flat is quiet and dark, with sheet-cloaked furnishings and dry, still air, giving it a quite unlived in feeling. Jonathan wonders just how much time Agatha spends here – whether she ever takes other callers, like himself or otherwise – before she leads him down a hallway to what can only be called a laboratory.

A pungent, almost sepulchral assortment of odors – acidic, salty, sickly-sweet – assaults his senses. Still, he follows Agatha in—and can't help but draw in a breath, amazed. The place is not merely inhabited; it's _presided_ over. Jonathan recognizes several of the instruments she'd used on stage at the Old Vic: cylinders and beakers of various sizes, containing a variety of undetermined substances. But there are also long sections of tubes, twisted and multi-faceted; a burner connected to a slender gas tank; a microscope; mortars and crucibles; tongs and tweezers. A dozen syringes held in a metal box. Vials upon vials of chemical powders and solutions.

Jars containing dead frogs. Cages containing live bats.

And a set of flasks set side-by-side in a wooden stand: blood samples, Jonathan immediately recognizes.

But what of the undead creature? He does not sense its pitiful presence.

"Do not be alarmed," Agatha says. She holds out her arms to take his cloak and hat and sets them to dry by the fireplace; if a curious look passes over her face when he refuses to surrender his gloves, it lasts only for a moment. She smiles at him. "As you perhaps realize, I am a student of the arcane, yes, but I am also an enthusiast of modern science. I think there is no mystery which cannot be examined beneath a microscope."

"You proved as much during your lecture, Professor Van Helsing," Jonathan says. And then he corrects himself: "Agatha. Believe me—I'm counting on it." He takes a step closer to the workbench. Despite the sheer quantity of tools, there is no disorder here. Each instrument has its own place. Every substance has a purpose. There are reams of paper and folios, rolls of schematics and diagrams—and at the center of it all, a thick, leather-bound diary, dense with neatly-scribed notes. He frowns.

"It's written in Dutch," Agatha explains. "I find my thoughts take to paper more precisely when I use my mother tongue." Then she shuts the book and swings around, bracing her backside against the table and her hands to either side of her. "Surely you must be parched after your journey, Mr. Harker. May I offer you some refreshment? Tea, perhaps? Or wine?"

"No," says Jonathan. "I'm fine." Then he shudders, his senses suddenly overwhelmed by the scent of blood. Fresh blood—

He swings backward, nearly falling over himself in an effort to conceal his face. He cannot allow Agatha to see his eyes—his fangs—his hunger.

Still, she circles around him, ever inquisitive. She's rubbing the blood off her thumb with a handkerchief, and neatly folding and pocketing a small knife. "Ah. Yes. I am sorry to intentionally provoke you," she says. "But sometimes provocation is the quickest path to enlightenment. Now: let us cut to the chase. You will have to forgive my bluntness, but what _are_ you?"

Jonathan coughs, still working to coax his animalistic aspect into submission. He begins to rifle through his pockets for his cigarette case; it takes him three strikes of the match to get one lit. Damn it all, but he had no intention of showing his hand so quickly. He says, eventually, "I beg your pardon?"

"Mr. Harker, please. Do not be coy. It is evident that you are not a man—or not only. What manner of creature are you?"

"I'm sorry, I—"

"Not a witch... or a warlock. A ghoul, perhaps? No, I think not..." Agatha says, wonderingly. She takes a step closer, and despite Jonathan's best effort to look aside, she manages to catch his eye.

"With the assistance of a detective acquaintance of mine, I've come into possession of what I believe to be your obituary, Mr. Harker. Clipped from _The Times_ , and dated April 23, in the year of our lord eighteen hundred and ninety-seven. Your last known whereabouts were at Castle Dracula, in Transylvania, Romania, where you were conducting some sort of business transaction. The paper did not go into specific detail on this.

"But still, you were reported missing by your fiancé, Mina Murray. And later declared dead, though a body was never recovered.

"Which leads me to believe you have been a _vampire_ for almost exactly ten years. Is that correct?"

Jonathan swallows. He feels utterly exposed. Tender as a raw nerve. He's tempted to bolt—to flee from this place and into the darkness like some wild, hunted beast.

But to what end? Would he deny Agatha's help only to throw himself into Dracula's arms?

_Dracula is my master. Dracula will be obeyed. Dracula is God._

"Yes," he says, after a long while. "Yes, that's absolutely correct."

Agatha grins. "Very good," she says, veritably bristling with excitement. "Then we can at last get down to business."


	5. Chapter 5

"Please, Mr. Harker," Agatha says, motioning to one of wingback chairs which flank the fireplace, "have a seat." She takes the other, settling against the leather cushions and positioning her diary across her lap, her pen inked and poised at the ready.

"Thank you." Jonathan takes one last drag on his cigarette and then tosses the butt into the embers. He hazards a glance up. "If you don't mind my saying so, you seem remarkably calm for someone who just confirmed the sinister nature of her guest."

"Ah. That can be explained easily enough by my particular enthusiasm for all _things_ sinister," Agnes says. "A feature which has, I will admit, occasionally landed me in trouble over the years. Tell me: should I be frightened of you?"

"Of course you should."

"Then you mean me harm—"

"No," says Jonathan, folding and unfolding his hands in his lap. "That is to say, the very nature of my...condition..."

"Vampirism," Agnes says.

"Yes. I cannot guarantee your safety."

"You will recall, Mr. Harker, that I vouched for my own ability to protect myself upon inviting you inside this residence. Which reminds me—If I had not invited you, would you have been able to enter?"

Jonathan bows his head slightly. And so it has truly begun—but how much will he allow himself to reveal? And again: _everything_. "No."

"Interesting," says Agatha, jotting a note into her diary. "And quite useful to know. It is so difficult to guess which of the folktales hold water. So. What is it that stops you? Perhaps there is some material yet invisible manifestation of the threshold which is only perceptible to your kind?"

"I'm not sure," Jonathan answers, honestly. "It's as if I can't will myself into movement until permission has been granted. To attempt to proceed without it is...painful."

"You can experience pain, then."

"Certainly."

"When I cut myself before, you fell backward, dazed. Was _that_ out of pain?"

Jonathan considers his words carefully. "Not exactly," he says. "The scent of blood is agonizing to a vampire—but only because the taste of it brings on ecstasy. When it's present, all other things pale to nothingness in comparison."

Agatha nods. "It is like a drug, perhaps. A strong tincture. It intoxicates you."

"Yes. Exactly."

"And the barest hint of it drove you to physically reveal yourself. I note that your eyes grew quite red, as if themselves aroused by blood. And your teeth—your _fangs_ , shall I say? They lengthened considerably, if I'm not mistaken. All the better to bite with, yes?"

Jonathan suppresses a shudder. "I—I have little _control_ over these things."

"And so you are indeed a slave to your thirst," Agatha says. For a long moment, she simply stares at him. Studies him with that uncanny anatomist's blade gaze. "I must say: it seems as unhappy an existence as I've ever encountered, Mr. Harker, and I have met a fair number of unhappy souls in my day. I cannot help but question why you chose it."

"But I didn't," Jonathan says, softly. He sucks in a steadying – _useless_ – breath and begins: "I was a solicitor, before. I was sent into the Carpathian Mountains to provide legal support for a real estate transaction overseen by my employer. Truth be told, I'd never left England prior to that. I jumped at the chance to visit some exotic locale... That it should be to so exceptionally unknown a place as Transylvania was immaterial.

"And Transylvania _was_ unknown. As was my destination, Castle Dracula... And as was its master. I'd no experience with nobility. I was in awe of my situation, and I immediately allowed it to cloud any sense of judgement."

"It sounds as if you were seduced, Mr. Harker."

"Seduced. Yes. That's exactly the term for it." Jonathan smiles bitterly. "And Dracula," he says. " _Count_ Dracula. He at first appeared to me as an old man. Enfeebled but remarkably curious. Keen. But then he began to change. It seemed he grew younger with each passing hour... and I thought I must be going mad."

He pauses, thinking back to those first days. The wine, the food. The long hours spent wandering the castle's labyrinthian corridors. The ever more disturbing conversations with Dracula—and the ever-growing nest of scars on his throat.

And then, determinedly: "But though the discrepancies in his story multiplied, I perceived him with an almost religious reverence. Even when I did discover the truth of his nature, even as I grew sicker and he stronger, I couldn't shake my... _attraction_ to him."

"And you made no attempt to flee?"

Jonathan grimaces. "There were...others in the castle at that time. I made it my purpose to help them, to free them from that place," he says. "I only later determined that they too were vampires. But beastly. Unhinged." And then, quietly: "He called them an _experiment_. He'd been feeding them scraps, you see. And he laid waste to them before we left the country."

"You traveled together?"

"Yes."

"Did you attempt to seek out your family? Your fiancé?"

"God, no," Jonathan says. Though of course he had _often_ visited Mina in those first weeks and months. Stalked at her window like some storybook fiend, telling himself he did it for her protection but more so longing deeply for the life they would never get to share—and was at once heartbroken and relieved when he found she had married someone else. He'd dared not look in on her again after that. And for his part, Dracula had not disturbed her, though he'd often delighted in threatening to do so.

He does so love to rattle Jonathan's cage.

Jonathan shakes his head now, entreatingly. "Suffice to say, by the time we set foot on English soil, I was not the same man who had departed from those shores but a few months earlier."

"And Dracula is in England even now?"

"Yes."

Agatha appears to consider this. "What is the nature of your relationship?"

"It's difficult to explain," says Jonathan, after a pause. And then: "I am bound to him."

"By blood? Or something else?" And then, after Jonathan fails to answer immediately: "It stands to reason that the creator should hold some dominion over his creation."

Jonathan hesitates. Agatha had hardly batted an eye when she learned that he drank living blood in order to sustain himself. Still, he weighs his response carefully. "We are...intimate."

And to her grace, Agatha takes this revelation in stride. "Do not worry, Mr. Harker. I am not drawn to fits of prudery. But I cannot help but wonder whether that very fact does not also help feed into Dracula's power over you. Blood, saliva, or otherwise—perhaps regular contact with him plays a role in his ability to hold sway."

Oh, but Jonathan cannot halt the flush that spreads up from his chest. Since the very beginning, scarcely a day has gone by that he and his lord haven't coupled in some way. Dracula's appetite for Jonathan continues, unabated. And as for Jonathan's desire for his lord—Well. He leaves it at this: "It is possible."

Agatha smiles. "Please do not be too hard on yourself. Even by historical accounts, the Count is charismatic to the utmost degree." And then, perhaps catching Jonathan's surprise: "My dear sir, did you not realize? Your master's notoriety precedes him."

Jonathan deflects, "But I do not _serve_ him."

"Yes, that is fine to say," sighs Agatha. Here she leans forward and takes his hands in hers. He flinches, almost shocked by the sudden contact; but also thankful for it. She looks at him imploringly. "Mr. Harker. _Jonathan._ You must search yourself and tell me the truth: if you were presented with the opportunity, would you destroy him?"

Damn him, but Jonathan hesitates. He hesitates! And then, deliberately: " _Yes._ "

*

Jonathan narrowly makes his train home. He's seated alone in the quiet, dim cabin, his satchel braced neatly atop his lap. While he and Agatha hadn't had time to thoroughly discuss her scientific findings – or Jonathan's own limited discoveries – she encouraged him to take home several small vials and jars containing custom-made chemical blends. In exchange, he'd left her with the assurance that he would use them to complete several new experiments—and that he would visit again in a week's time.

And now he is bristling, every inch of him feeling lighter, elevated and luminous. For those scant hours he and Agatha spent together, his loneliness had seemed somehow surmountable. Even the mere act of relaying his story gave him a sense of relief he'd not thought possible.

The mere act of being heard. Of being _seen_.

Dawn is still an hour away when he at last makes his way down the long driveway to Carfax Abbey. He means to quickly drop off the satchel before venturing into the main house – and avoiding Dracula, if he's able – when he finds the shed door unlocked, and the front room of his laboratory fully lit up.

Jonathan senses his lord's presence before he finds him stretched out on the settee, Jonathan's notebook splayed open across his knees. He looks up from the paper he'd evidently been studying. "Hello, Johnny."

Jonathan swallows. "Good evening."

"Bit past evening, isn't it? I think most people would generally classify four-thirty as _morning_ ," Dracula drawls. He's dressed simply, his linen shirt unbuttoned to reveal the pale curve of his throat, and below it, a smattering of glossy black chest hair. Jonathan forces himself to look away.

Dracula smiles. "You'll have to excuse my intrusion. It was only that I got rather bored _waiting_ for you." He tucks the paper back into the notebook, closing it with a flourish. "But I must say that I suddenly see the appeal. It's fascinating stuff. Of course, I've tasted my fair share of types of blood over the years... but I never considered that there might be something so literal as a blood _type_. Perhaps you'll one day be so kind as to educate me on the matter."

"Certainly," says Jonathan. "I would be happy to."

Then he tilts his head. He's been so taken aback by Dracula's presence that he only now notices another sound: music.

To the edge of the room, set neatly on an end table, is a gramophone.

It's an impressive thing, with cherrywood casings, gleaming silver dials, and a wide, scalloped horn. There's also a neat stack of recording discs next to it – perhaps ten or more – and Jonathan picks through them: Bach and Mozart and Tchaikovsky and Sibelius—works he recognizes as some of Dracula's personal favorites, as well as several modern dance records. It's one of these that's presently playing, all meandering brass and strings.

"A gift," says Dracula. He's directly behind Jonathan now. His breath raises the fine hairs at Jonathan's nape. "Do you like it?"

Jonathan falters, momentarily stunned by the rare show of genuine generosity. "Y—yes," he says. And he means it. The music is clear and true: an absolute wonder. "Thank you."

"Anything for my Johnny." Dracula's hand is on Jonathan's hip, and he slowly turns him so they're facing each other. He removes Jonathan's hat and begins to unbutton his greatcoat, pushing it over his shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. Another step forward and they're almost touching, chest-to-chest. "This modern age never fails to amaze." And then he leans in, his nose rustling in Jonathan's hair, nuzzling his throat. Taking in his scent. "You've been to London tonight," he says, "but it seems it wasn't for the purpose of feeding."

It isn't a question. There's no point in Jonathan denying it. "Yes... I picked up some supplies..."

"We could have gone together. I'd've been _happy_ to drive."

"I just needed some time to myself. I needed to clear my head."

Dracula smiles. "Did you now?" And he draws Jonathan into his arms, takes Jonathan's hand and coaxes him into a dance. There's no set form to it. He simply keeps a slow, deliberate pace and guides Jonathan back out into the room. Jonathan eases into the motion, allowing himself to be led. One, two; one, two: the approximation of a heartbeat. They keep it up for several minutes as one song bleeds into the next.

It's _nice_. Peaceful, in fact. And Jonathan knows it won't last.

He looks into his lord's eyes and sees hunger there, predatory and impatient.

Dracula says, his voice low and demanding, "Tell me: did you forget to consider what _I_ need?"

Jonathan gasps when Dracula grabs him—at first just through his trousers, his long fingers working the fabric over Jonathan's groin before deftly undoing his flies. He delves inside and takes Jonathan's full – and already hardening – length in his hand. That familiar, cool, dry touch is enough to make Jonathan whimper, the sound escaping from a place deep in his chest before being captured by Dracula's mouth.

Between hard, biting kisses, Dracula says, "I can't have you straying too far from me, Johnny." Another nip, drawing blood this time. "Not when my plans are growing so near to fruition."

"Plans?" Jonathan pants. Dracula has by now maneuvered him over to the workbench, pushing him backward until he's trapped against the edge of it. Then Dracula flips him round and yanks down on his trousers to expose his backside. It's all Jonathan can do to clear off a space on the crowded bench and prop himself up with his forearms.

"You didn't really think I'd been feasting on politicians for just the fun of it, did you?" Dracula pushes Jonathan's shirt up and scratches down the bare flesh, his nails leaving bloody welts, then kneads roughly at his arse. His voice takes on an almost singsong cadence: "No, Johnny. I've a higher purpose." Cool breath falls over Jonathan's tailbone. "I've been conducting _research_."

Then Jonathan sucks in a breath as Dracula's tongue circles his hole—and then enters him. Intrudes. _Delves_. The sensation is sharp, almost painful, and it spreads through his guts before being replaced by a delicious wave of arousal. He rests his head on his arms and tries to steady himself, for though Dracula's hands are gripped tightly on his sides, pinning him against the workbench, the urge to rock backwards is overwhelming.

Dracula works at him for another minute before he pulls away and deals with his own belt and flies. Jonathan lets out a frustrated groan. "Please— _please_ —"

"Patience... my dear," Dracula sighs, and Jonathan trembles, surprised to hear the ragged edge in his lord's words. For a moment, he feels the tip of Dracula's cock tease against him before he pushes in with a single powerful thrust.

And Dracula fucks him unrelentingly, his fingertips digging even deeper into Jonathan's hips. Jonathan grapples for his own cock and strokes himself in counterpoint to the movement of Dracula's hips.

The rest of the night – his time with Agatha – suddenly seems like some rarified dream, abstract, far off like an untouched shore. There is only this: Dracula. Dracula above him and inside him. Dracula present within the deepest fibres of him.

There is nowhere he can hide.

_Now, Johnny. Now. Come for me._

And Jonathan does, his lungs puffing out a muffled shout as he spills into his fist. Dracula only lasts a few thrusts more, pulsing deep within him before draping himself over Jonathan's back and sinking his teeth into Jonathan's throat. Jonathan moans.

"Oh, Johnny. You never fail to amuse. Now just wait until you see," Dracula murmurs wetly into Jonathan's ear, "what I've in store for you."

To the far side of the room, the gramophone is hissing out static now, its needle tracing the grooveless center of the disc, endlessly attempting – and failing – to find purchase.


	6. Chapter 6

Jonathan never used to be a betting man.

For the entirety of his thirty-five mortal years, he'd been content to follow a prescribed course. Education, work, marriage—his barrister father had no compunction about charting the map of Jonathan's future when he was scarcely out of infancy.

His father likewise didn't hesitate to send Jonathan away to school mere weeks after they'd lost his dear mother to consumption. The times he saw the blustery old man after that were stiff, unpleasant occasions, remarkable only for their infrequency.

And Jonathan had taken it in stride. What else could he do? For the days had a way of rolling by whether he wanted them to or not. He'd been happy in his simple life, at once astonished and grateful that as remarkable a woman as Wilhelmina Murry – his enchanting _Mina_ – had looked at knob-kneed, ginger-haired Johnny Harker and deemed him worthy.

She'd been the first person in his adult life to have properly _seen_ him.

How he'd _ached_ for her—

The practice of law came easily enough to him, but the hours were long. He often only saw Mina at the weekend, and fleetingly at that. It was no small struggle to survive from day to day on the memory of her gentle laughter. The scent of her perfume. The touch of her hand on his... and the welcome if invasive imaginings of its warmth delving elsewhere.

He'd ached for her, but he'd been unwilling to risk sharing more than a few chaste kisses as they sat together, far from prying eyes, in the shadow of the ancient oak tree on the hill: their favorite picnicking spot. Both of them a little tipsy. Her tasting of treacle tart. The flush which spread down from her cheeks, to her chest and beneath her bodice, and him trying to disguise his erection.

What a fool he'd been to ever leave her side before they were married. But taking that damned case – traveling hundreds of miles to Transylvania to mediate his clients' property transaction – seemed as sure a way as any to solidify his position within the firm. He'd only wanted to _provide_ for her.

Dracula picked Jonathan out of that life like a piece of fruit from the vine; plucked him, ripe and ruddy, and swallowed him whole.

*

"Plans?" Agatha's back is to Jonathan; she's readying her medical tray, laying out the syringe and vials. "Has he given you any indication of just what they might entail?"

Jonathan pauses. He's already explained in as much depth as he can that vampires are able to glean things from their victims' blood: memories, mannerisms, ideas—even, in Dracula's case, detailed concepts like languages and ideologies, a fact which Agatha found particularly fascinating. And then: "It's always been his intention to remake England in his own nightmarish image. He wants to rule. Playing at politics is only a part of the equation."

"And what role has he given you to play?" Agatha turns to meet his eye. "Will he rule with you at his side?"

"I'd rather die."

"You are _already_ dead, Jonathan. There are, of course, far worse fates."

Jonathan thinks suddenly of Dracula's previous brides—flashes back to his discovery of those starving, mad creatures and the bored way his lord had disposed of them. "I—I know that. He's not to be underestimated," he says. "And the fact that he hasn't taken note of my being here isn't a source of comfort."

"Perhaps you too are not to be underestimated," Agatha says, again meeting Jonathan's eye. She's now holding Jonathan's arm in one hand and a narrow syringe in the other. She already has a vein picked out. "Shall we take a closer look?"

"Yes," says Jonathan. "Go ahead."

And prior experience has shown that in order to breach Jonathan's vampiric skin, he will need to guide the needle in himself, but from there he lets Agatha take over—lets her extract as much blood as she deems necessary for the week's experiments, and today it's to be four vials' worth.

"There," she says, after a minute. "As ever, you're an excellent patient."

Jonathan closes his eyes and looks away as Agatha withdraws the needle, unable to stifle the low tingle of pleasure the procedure has afforded him. In another moment, the wound has healed. He rubs at the dot of dried blood and rolls his sleeve back down. And then: "Thank you."

Agatha smiles. Then she beelines for her workbench, where her notebook, pen, and microscope stand at the ready. She decanters one of the syringes into a tube and carefully drops a sample of Jonathan's blood onto a prepared slide. This she sets beneath the lens. "Please. Tell me what you see."

Jonathan squints into the eyepiece. "Blood cells," he says. "The leukocytes are active, while the red cells are prone to irregular, almost lethargic movement. These are mostly rounded in shape, although some are quite...deformed."

"When was the last time you ingested fresh, human blood?"

Though Jonathan has grown used to Agatha's bluntness, the question gives him pause. Upon waking this evening, he'd dined with Dracula: his lord had poured them each a full glass before they'd set out to the city together. And then later, after an hour spent enduring the tedious chatter of Dracula's favorite gentlemen's club, he'd found the hunger gnawing at his guts to be too fierce to ignore and excused himself to go hunt—but instead found himself inexorably drawn to Agatha's doorstep. She'd arched a brow and ushered him in, untroubled by the surprise visit.

He leaves it at this: "Recently."

"How much?"

"I haven't taken a life tonight, if that's what you mean."

"That's _precisely_ what I mean," she says. "And so your red blood cells are in an advanced state of degradation, much as we observed the last time you were here. But look." Here she adds a second droplet of blood onto the slide. "Look again."

Jonathan does. Before his very eyes, the leukocytes from the original droplet begin attacking the newly introduced cells— _absorbing_ them. And almost instantly, the entire sample appears quite restored. Reinvigorated. Alive. "Good God," he murmurs.

"Very likely not," Agatha chirps in response. "As you have undoubtedly surmised by now, at the most basic level, your cells are programed to not so much reject foreign blood as to utterly devastate it. I have watched it over and over again! My fingers grew so tired of being pricked, in fact, that I sought out samples from additional donors. I was even fortunate enough to access multiple types—blood _sanguigens_ , if you will. But the results are always the same: the vampiric blood sample consumes that which it comes into contact with until nothing of the second sample remains."

"And this second sample..." Jonathan trails off. The thought of feeding on Agatha, even at so removed a distance, fills him with dread. "Was it—"

"My blood? Yes. But don't let that disturb you: beneath the microscope's lens, our base parts are separated from our _selves_ as much as they are magnified to the eye. Besides which, it is for a good cause."

"A cure," says Jonathan, for isn't that what he himself has dreamed of discovering in his own earnest, if limited, research? In the time since he first visited Agatha, they'd spoken at length on the parameters of his condition—the manifestations of his preternatural disorder.

And they'd meticulously catalogued the changes his human body had undergone in order to feed as a vampire. His fangs. His claw-like nails. His unearthly, gravity-defying agility, speed, and brawn. His enhanced senses. His skin's simultaneous strength and photosensitivity. His lack of bodily waste. His greedy, animalistic hunger which ever pawed at his guts, thrummed through his veins, made his mind reel.

 _Rapid evolution_ , Agatha has called it. The transformation of an ordinary human into something quite beyond himself.

The irony that a former nun could find purchase in the works of Charles Darwin is not lost Jonathan—but Agatha's fascination with both the occult and modern science, and her knowledge of their combined application, flow from a deeper wellspring than his own. Even early on, observing that Jonathan's red cells were deranged, damaged, while the leucocytes remained active under duress and over the span of many days, Agatha suggested that vampirism might be classified as a sort of anemia.

But just as the simplicity of this explanation rocks him to his core, something in him knows that it isn't the truth—or not only. His physical and psychological dependence on Dracula – his _need_ for his lord – ever tells him otherwise.

And yet Jonathan allows himself some small shred of hope. "A cure," he says again. "Is it possible?"

"Yes," Agatha says, firmly, "for at its core, vampirism is a _disease_ of the blood."

*

Later, on the way back to Dracula's club, Jonathan's disease gets the best of him.

To his credit, the encounter rightly should have resulted in his own death—if he'd been human. If he'd been mortal. But even as the prospect of a cure circles in his thoughts, he cannot help but be what he is now, and that is this: a predator.

The thug picks him out from the post-theatre crowds, follows him down an alleyway and within moments has a knife at his throat with practiced – if brutal – ease. "Your purse, sir. Your watch and chain. Or your life. _Now._ "

Jonathan wrinkles his nose, unable to avoid the sickly, boozy stench of the man's breath. And so too he pities this poor creature. He simply hasn't a chance: Jonathan swings them both round so the man's back thumps against the brick wall, at once batting the knife from his hand and wrenching his dirty neckerchief away to expose his unshaven throat.

Then he takes him.

The man, quickly sedated by Jonathan's bite, sags forward into his arms. And at once, Jonathan cannot help but know some peripheral part of him. He brushes his name, his foul temperament, his hunger and ambition, out of his thoughts like drops of dew off grass: a hazy picture, to be sure.

Incomplete—and utterly revolting to Jonathan's emotional pallet.

And yet by God, the taste of his blood is still quite revelatory. Heady and rich. Jonathan moans, drinking until the freely flowing fount runs dry and the man is quite dead, before beginning to lick at the wound. Purposeful, inquisitive.

Hungry.


	7. Chapter 7

Spring passes into summer. The nights at Carfax Abbey grow ever shorter—though lush, humid, heavy with the scent of roses. This perfume drifts from the unkempt garden through the open shed window, eventually curling into Jonathan's laboratory... before being swiftly overtaken by the metallic tang of blood and chemicals.

And Jonathan is suspended between two worlds. Caught between a dream and reality. He continues to dine with Dracula nightly; and couple with him nightly, too. Jonathan can't say this isn't what some base part of him deeply desires—

Although so too, he desires to spend as much time as he can with Agatha, so much so that on nights when Dracula drives them into London, Jonathan often eschews his lord's company altogether, feigning appetite or fatigue. He leaves Dracula in his club, or the theatre, or whatever dinner party they'd gained an invitation to on that particular evening and makes his way to Kensington.

And when Dracula's gaze grows ever more wary, more watchful, Jonathan only takes it as an urgent sign that he and Agatha must accelerate their work.

*

"Hello, Johnny."

Jonathan looks up, startled. He's seated on an iron bench in the garden, a well-thumbed periodical in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The tinkling sound of a Mozart record bleeds out from the laboratory. The moon shines high overhead, full and bright.

And Dracula is beside him. Naked. Somehow huge in the blue-white light, pale and toned and still. He looms over Jonathan like a statue carved from perfect, polished stone. Alabaster and obsidian: _inhuman_.

Jonathan shivers at the sight. And then, hesitantly: "Going out for a run?" For he knew well enough that his lord enjoyed taking the form of a wolf on nights such as this. While Dracula had never changed in Jonathan's presence – leaving Jonathan to guess at the sinister mechanics of the process – he'd often sought him out afterward—found him and fucked him, ever delighted to foul Jonathan's clothes and skin with the bloody viscera of his transformation.

Dracula smiles. "Yes," he says. "Something like that."

Suddenly, Jonathan is thrust up on his feet, thrown backward and pinned against the stone wall. Dracula crowds against him, his long, powerful hands gripped to either side of Jonathan's head. "Johnny, Johnny," he growls. "My beautiful bride."

Then he leans in and captures Jonathan's mouth in a hard, vicious kiss, all teeth. Jonathan is caught between a moan and a scream as Dracula bites down on his tongue and a fast, bright fount of blood flows freely between them.

Dracula is so _strong_.

And he's pulling back, grinning, his eyes gleaming wild and bright. His mouth is painted with Jonathan's blood. "Remember," he says, and runs his thumbnail down Jonathan's cheek. "You were the best of them."

All at once, Jonathan feels the world rip out from beneath his feet.

Dracula is here. And Dracula is not here: he's _dissolving_ into a thick, viscous cloud of mist. Crimson-hued. Poisonous.

Jonathan tries to turn away, but there's no stopping it as it flows into his mouth and nostrils, his ears and eyes and pores. It floods through his lungs. It penetrates his guts. It holds him as tightly as a blanket of fine wool, as hot as a wire filament, igniting every atom in his body.

And then, after a long moment, all is still again.

And then: Dracula is inside.

*

Jonathan is aware of his surroundings. He understands with acute clarity that he's driven into London, parked the automobile, and begun walking through a gaslit neighborhood. He recognizes Agatha's street, and her home, and the feel of the woodgrain on his bare knuckles as he knocks upon the front door. He notes her frank, inquisitive look as she tugs her dressing gown over her chest – for it's so very late, of course he's woken her – and he knows that her relenting smile as she steps back to let him inside is completely genuine.

He says, "Thank you, my dear lady," but it isn't _he_ who says it. Because he isn't in control; not anymore. "You'll forgive the late call, but I simply couldn't _wait_ to meet you."

This gives her pause. "Jonathan? Are you quite all right?" She takes a step back.

And he steps forward. Then he swiftly enfolds her in his arms, taking her tall, slender form into his vice-like grip. She struggles against him, gasping, screaming, "Jonathan! Please, Jonathan— _don't_."

But he pulls her long hair back from her neck and strokes a finger across her flesh. "I do suggest you remain as still as you can for this next part," Dracula's words pipe through Jonathan's lips. "It'll hurt less."

Then he lowers his fangs to Agatha's throat.


	8. Chapter 8

Jonathan never knew what it could be like—by God, he never knew—

The _blood_ —

Agatha's blood rushes over his tongue and down his throat, reflecting and refracting like light through a dark crystal. At once horrific and mesmerizing.

And this is Dracula's doing. He feels his lord's laughter vibrate from deep within him. And suddenly, he _knows_ her. He absorbs the full length and breadth of her, her past and present, as a multitude of quick, complex images. Every beat of her heart summons a fresh sequence, each far more detailed than a simple recalled memory.

...It's been five years since she arrived at the convent. Specifically, five years, three months, and six days. But who is counting? She's thirty-seven. When not stuck in prayer or performing her assigned chores about the property, she spends most of her days – and many of her nights – ensconced in her cellar. The other sisters have the good grace to leave her be. It's quiet there, and cold. But her bodily comfort is easy to ignore tonight, she's so engrossed in transcribing a well-worn, long sought-after manuscript which details the occultic misadventures of Sir Thomas More. The regular scratch of her pen nib on her diary page makes her tingle with pleasure...

...It's June in Amsterdam. The morning of her uncle's funeral. And she is nine. She presses her cheek against the sun-warmed glass of the carriage cab and stares out at the cloudless sky. The lace of her frock's collar is unbearably scratchy; she hates her mother for making her wear it, and gives her a rude look when she confiscates her sketchbook as they enter the church...

...It's the night of her eighteenth birthday. She's lately returned home from the theatre, a little drunk, flushed and full of merriment. Her mother and brother are already abed. But they left a light on for her, which is the only reason she comes upon the neatly wrapped parcel on the parlor table. She recognizes her father's curling scrawl on the card – _To My Darling Ag—Wishing you the happiest of days. I so wish I could give this to you in person..._ – knowing well enough that he won't be home until the summer holidays. She tears the paper back to reveal a careworn, leather-bound volume, with the title _Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, &c._ embossed in gold gilt across its cover. A shiver skirts up her spine. This is most unusual. Why would her father, a divinity scholar, gift her with such a thing? Still, curiosity is a powerful force: scarcely a moment passes before she settles onto the settee and begins to read...

...It's the night of her premiere lecture at the Old Vic. She sits backstage, hunched over her notes, whispering faintly under her breath. The outline is based on several of her recent esoteric publications, only slightly sensationalized—and the undead creature she procured by recommendation of her detective friend will tell the rest of the story. And yet she has never before presented her findings before a public audience... a _paying_ audience. She is fifty-six. An expatriate several times over. Unwed. And she needs the money. These men and women have parted their purse strings for the chance to be safely thrilled, sufficiently frightened, and forget their troubles for a while—all save for one...

 _Why Johnny, there you are,_ Dracula's voice thrums suddenly through Jonathan's head, breaking him from his reverie, _looking so earnest, so studious. And it's little wonder: this Van Helsing woman is indeed full of surprises. Such a delicious desire for knowledge! I'm amazed you've been able to resist taking her for yourself._

 _Stop this!_ Jonathan entreats. _Please! Don't kill her._

 _Who said anything about killing? No, my dear. I'm going to_ enjoy _this one. I'm going to make her last._

Just then, Agatha lets out a groan and slumps further into Jonathan's embrace. She's unconscious. Dracula yanks Jonathan back from her throat, forcing his tongue over his lips to lap up the dripped blood. He shivers, enraptured.

"Yes. It's good, isn't it?" Dracula says aloud in Jonathan's voice, and the sound seems suddenly far away. Jonathan realizes with sudden terror that the cognizance Dracula has heretofore granted him has been revoked. The full weight of his lord's consciousness drifts over him in solid waves, drawing him deeper into himself until only darkness remains.

*

Awareness eventually returns to him, but it is fragmented. Strained. Slow.

He's back at Carfax Abbey. He's retreating into the crypt. He's writhing about on all fours in a damp, unfamiliar room, his clawed fingers bent against the dirty stone floor, desperately trying to find purchase. To hold together.

He's struggling against himself—

Ripping at his clothes—

He's in more pain than he ever thought possible. It's as if each atom in his body is screaming out, at once torn apart and crushed by some invisible force. His head is pounding. He thrashes at his own skin. His chest expands and contracts as his lungs fight to let in shallow, erratic puffs of air.

Then his is mouth wrenches open and that foul, blood-red mist begins to seep out of him. He gags, choking on it—on _him_.

But Dracula exits his body with none of the finesse he'd used upon entering it. No, it's a sluggish, agonizing process. He feels like he's being wrung out. Squeezed and pulped.

Jonathan blinks back tears. Vaguely, he can make out Dracula's reaccumulating form stretched out beside him, but it's a horrible amalgam of exposed skeleton and flesh, as if his lord is putting himself back together from the inside out. There isn't even any sound at first, save for Jonathan's own ragged breath.

Then: a low burbling. New skin begins to stretch over the sinew and muscles, the bones and pulsing, bloody viscera.

Dracula lets out a guttural, aching moan.

By now, the mist has dissipated, revealing the full length of his flushed and shining body. His full lips close over his fangs. He rubs his hands over his face and through his hair, and his eyes blink open—they're bloodshot, but the pupils have gone back to their normal black. " _Ouch_ ," he complains.

Jonathan shudders, trying – and failing – to push himself away. He doesn't even have the energy to lift his head from the ground.

Dracula slowly rolls onto his side and looks at him. "You'll have to pardon the rude departure," he whispers hoarsely, "but then, you must realize that you've lately caused me quite a bit of bother."

"Where is she?" Jonathan pants. "What have you done with her?"

Dracula smiles wickedly. "Oh, Johnny. Ever gallant. But Madam Van Helsing's status should be the very least of your concerns." With great effort, he gets onto his hands and knees, and then to his feet. Then he lurches forward and leans heavily against the room's – _dungeon_ cell, Jonathan realizes with some alarm – reinforced wooden door. He gets it open. His head is silhouetted against a lit torch in the hallway as he turns once more to say, "Make no mistake: just because I've spared your life today, I'm far from finished with you."

*

Jonathan Harker is dreaming.

He dreams that it's the dead of winter, and he is so very far – veritable _oceans_ away – from his beloved England. His home. His _life_. But his rooms here at the castle are warm. Indeed, they're quite _comfortable_ , for the master of this place has been more than happy to accommodate Jonathan's every corporeal need—fresh candles and warm blankets and more of the exquisite wine he'd served at dinner... wine he'd not touched himself. Odd.

Jonathan files this sliver of information away but pays it no further mind, for the distractions of this place are numerous, nigh on _overwhelming_ , so that even the passage of time, the very hour of the day, is difficult to parse.

For the master of this place—

The Count—

Well. He is also distracting. Jonathan finds himself staying awake later than is his custom, and drinking more wine than is his want, if only to hear _one more_ of the Count's enthralling stories—if only to once more meet, and hold, the Count's eye.

If only to find himself swallowed whole by those dark pools.

 _"Please. Let us dispense with these formalities. Let us be..._ friends _."_

And could it be that some of the wrinkles on his brow have smoothed even as they've been sitting together in the glow of the great hall's enormous hearth?

Count Dracula reaches forward to stroke Jonathan's cheek. He cradles Jonathan's jaw. His touch is deceptively gentle, his fingertips soft and smooth. Jonathan leans into it, rubs against him like a cat. Aroused.

And then the Count lowers his hand and uses his sharp thumbnail to strike a neat gash across Jonathan's throat. Blood, impossibly dark and thick and copious, spills out over Jonathan's collar. He gasps, gagging on it. No. _No!_

_"Yes, Johnny. But do not worry. I will make you last. My lovely Johnny blue-eyes—"_

And Jonathan is screaming—

He wakes with a start, swiftly sitting up and scrabbling his limbs against himself. His breath heaves in and out of his chest as he blinks about him, staring into the gloom.

Blearily, he recognizes Dracula.

But could it be that his vision deceives him? He's starving, after all. Half-mad with hunger: although he doesn't know how long he's been imprisoned here, trapped alone in this dank cell, his sallow skin and bony, sunken physique speak plainly enough. What clothes he has left hang off him like so many dirty rags. His claws are gnawed down to the quick.

Certainly, he's a perfect horror. But he doesn't care. Not really. Not when it's been so long since he last fed—

So _immeasurably_ long, and now the scent of blood hits him like a blow. And yes, Dracula truly is there, seated before him in a high-backed chair, his legs crossed at the knee. One hand is draped elegantly across his lap. And the other—

The other holds a crystal glass of decantered blood.

Dracula smiles and takes a thoughtful sip. "Trouble sleeping, Johnny?"

Jonathan swallows, and it takes everything in him to not lunge forward and grapple the glass from Dracula's hand. "P— P—" His voice comes out in a harsh croak. And then: " _Please—_ "

"Mm. Yes. I thought so. You _have_ been carrying on such an awful lot. 'I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space,'" he recites, "'were it not that I have bad dreams.'"

Here he reaches out to Jonathan, flicks his long fingers twice to beckon him forward. "Come here."

And Jonathan does—but slowly, his knobby knees scraping against the floor. He comes to settle by Dracula's feet. He lets his cheek rest against the soft wool of his trouser leg.

Dracula sets a hand on Jonathan's head. He's lost most of his hair, and its weight and warmth against his bare scalp comes almost as a shock. "Please," he whimpers again. "I—I'm so—"

"I know, darling. I know," Dracula says softly. He lifts Jonathan's chin, forcing him to meet his eye. "But everything comes at a cost. You were disloyal, and it has cost you your freedom. It's been three months, Johnny. Did you realize?"

Jonathan shudders. "No..."

"I'd love to let you out of here. I really would," he says, his voice honey-sweet with sympathy. "D'you even realize how much it pains me to see you like this? But how can I be certain you've learned your lesson?"

"I...I give you my word." Jonathan swallows dryly. The blood is so close, its aroma a veritable assault on his overwrought senses. He craves it—needs it with every fibre of his being. " _Please_ , my lord."

For a long moment, Dracula narrows his eyes, considering him. Then he sighs. "All right, Johnny." He uncorks his bottle and refills the glass to brimming. "Come on then. Come on: there's a good boy." And then: "I've someone upstairs who's _dying_ to see you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all for this part! Thanks again for reading, and thanks to those who’ve left comments and kudos. Your interest means a lot to me - please stay tuned for more :) Dracula/Jonathan is a bloody rare steak of a pairing that's a bit out of my typical fic writing wheelhouse, but I'm loving it!
> 
> Stay well <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Ao3! It’s been a while. Consider this a toe in the water after a yearlong+ fandom break :)
> 
> Title from William Blake.


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